Once Mr Meadowes had himself been a teacher Thirty years in the classroom in the smell of chalk and cabbage and mown grass and socks and wood polish and life Of course in this year of there were no more teachers after all computers were far safer and more efficient but the school still looked so familiar so real in the sweet October light that he could almost ignore the chain link fence that reared mightily above the little wall and ran all the way around the playing field the lightning bolt electrification symbol and the lettered warning SCHOOL NO UNACCOMPANIED ADULTS bolted to the post